


The Imagiversal Compendium: The Flux Taint

by Adam_Skelecoot



Series: The Imagiverse Chronicles [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Original Work, The Yogscast
Genre: Flux (Yogscast), Flux Buddies Setting (Yogscast), Metafiction, Religion, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29592141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adam_Skelecoot/pseuds/Adam_Skelecoot
Summary: A passage of an ever-growing guide to the Imagiverse and its contents. This passage tells of Minecraftia's Flux Taint and its history.
Series: The Imagiverse Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1359625





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> While based off the Yogscast Series "Flux Buddies", this piece of lore is centred around the Imagiverse, an imaginary universe of my own making, and as a result does not entirely fit the established canon. That being said, what you will read here may inspire you to create fanon of your own.

Before we discuss the Flux and its effects on the inhabitants of Minecraftia, a short history lesson must be taken if we are to observe the true cosmic significance of this mysterious and dangerous corruption. When the worlds of the Imagiverse were still young, a shapeless monster of stellar proportions known only as Argus was sent by the Maelstrom to destroy the new worlds before they could fully mature. In retaliation, the Creators ordered Goldren, the copper giant that served as their domain's blacksmith, to devise a means of slaying the immeasurably large beast. In response, the Titans were built, a group of colossal mechanical warriors that very much resembled the knights of olden times. 

The resulting battle was long and harrowing, as they attempted to inflict enough wounds to kill Argus, but as is common with these stories, the Titans were for the most part victorious, and now sit somewhere within Goldren's celestial foundry, mostly intact if fewer in numbers. However, the battle was not without its consequences; the broken-down body of the Argus had split into millions of lesser demons that still threaten the Imagiverse today, one of them being Calypso, the primal elemental of Insanity that serves as the foundation of Bedlam, the domain of the demons of madness. The purple blood of Argus had also spilt onto the southern side of Minecraftia, where it eventually formed a life of its own, threatening to spread across the entirety of the cuboid planet.

Realising that their intervention was once again required, the Creators devised a failsafe to curtail the spread of Argus' blood, which became known as the Flux Taint by future thaumaturges, through the introduction of a mortal agent to serve as both its ruler and Ego, keeping it in check through the empathetic filter of the mortal mind. And thus, the first Flux Lord was appointed, with initial signs of success. This solution was not complete, however, as the Flux Lords would all follow a pattern of megalomaniacal behaviour connected with the Flux's innate desire to spread across Minecraftia, and on the surface it would seem as if the introduction of the Flux Lords did very little to postpone the Taint's seemingly inevitable spread across the cuboid world.


	2. The Flux Taint

What is the Flux Taint?

There is the thaumaturge's explanation, one that has been commonly adopted by the inhabitants of Minecraftia, which describes the Flux as the manifestation of chaotic magic being expelled into the world through failed rituals and excess essentia being dumped into the air. It is regarded as a form of background radiation, or a versatile form of toxic waste, eventually mutating the area if too much accumulates in one region; the land adopts a purplish tint, the flora becomes gnarled and unnatural, the fauna becomes disfigured and loathsome. If anything dies in a tainted region, the Flux would sometimes reanimate the corpse into a twisted parody of itself, digging into its rotting body and controlling it like a decaying puppet. Any of the plentiful aura nodes that reside in these regions are also corrupted and become focal points, spreading the Taint even further.

Then there is the explanation of the Children of the Flux, a spread-out population of Tainted individuals who had built their own religion (or, to the less sympathetic, cult) out of the symptomatic hallucinations and delusions they experience. They say that the Flux is a sprawling, psychically-connected ecosystem harkening back to the oldest forms of nature, whatever they might have been. The Children say that the Flux is ruled, much like how a hive of insects is ruled by a queen, by the Flux Lord Nex and, previously, the Flux Lady. These two deities are referred to respectively as "Father" and "Mother" in their religious texts and regular conversation, with the implication that they view the Flux in its entirety as a family of sorts.

The Children are occasionally seen in the equatorial sides of the planet, which sit between the northern side occupied by Notch, the Creator of Minecraftia, and the southern side, which is overrun by Flux and thus serves as the Flux Lord's domain. However, it is the latter side that serves as the main residence of the Children, in reality a collection of villages which had been swarmed by the Flux many centuries ago and have undergone a steady transformation; they are typically almost entirely covered in Flux, which in most cases causes severe deformities and mutations within the populace, from slight oddities like missing/additional/tentacle-like fingers to becoming so deformed as to be almost unrecognisable as a humanoid being. Given the circumstances, it was probably inevitable that they would eventually seek solace in their troubled affairs through religious means.


	3. Mother and Father

The origin story of the two deities, detailed in the Children's religious texts compiled in a book titled The Violet Garden, is one of love and betrayal, and actually fairly new when it comes to religious texts, dating only over a century ago, during the early years of Nex's reign. The Flux Lord, assuming the form of a handsome young noble, gains the attraction of a fair village girl who went to a nearby cave to pray. Taken aback by his advances at first, she soon becomes infatuated by his mysterious charm and they embrace in the Flux pool within the cave, where she nearly drowns. Panicking, Nex fuses her body with the Flux Taint, granting her godlike status and transforming her into a woman (or woman-shaped entity) composed entirely of Flux.  
What followed is a fairly happy if unofficial marriage as the two gods rule their kingdom together. Their combined dominion was initially a peaceful one, or at least as peaceful as a kingdom dispositioned towards world assimilation can be. However, the beliefs and interpretations of the two rulers begin to arise and conflict with one another; while the Flux Lord sought to use the Flux as a sort of war machine to overthrow the Creator, the Flux Lady had adopted a pacifistic and isolationist stance on their kingdom, believing it to be a sacred garden that must be preserved. The friction and conflict eventually climaxed in a brief battle between Mother and Father, with the latter emerging as the victor and the former exiled to the depths of the earth, where she would no longer hold power over the Flux.  
An interesting aspect to note, however, is how each of the two deities are worshipped. Fitting with the maternal archetype, Mother is often portrayed as an all-loving goddess seeking only to nurture and protect her Children from those who wish them destroyed, vis. The Creator's agents of Order and the unsympathetic residents of the equatorial regions. Meanwhile, Father commands his children's worship through fear, and as he is considered the dominant ruler of the Flux, this often manifests through the occasional visitation of undescribed horrors sent to collect sacrifices from the villages. As such, it is notable that the majority of their prayers go towards the loving Mother, as if they fear that drawing attention from the Flux Lord would only bring more terror, which would most likely be the case.


	4. The Vessel

When the Flux Lord and Lady married, it was said that their union prompted the appearance of strange figures, either completely overcome by the Flux or strangely clean. The recorded reports of witnesses are tenuous and inconsistent at best, but it was soon believed that these figures were the offspring of Mother and Father, and by that extent the Flux, and that the earth itself had given birth to whom they would call the Children, subsequently becoming the namesake of their previously-unnamed religion. These Children would become highly regarded among their lowly kin, and would henceforth be destined as high priests and saints, working towards further connecting their kin and spreading the word of the Flux Lord.

The emergence of the Flux Lord's offspring is important to note, as it correlates to an even older prophecy of unknown origin, rumoured to have been foretold by beings almost as old as Minecraftia itself, perhaps even older, when Argus' blood first splashed onto terrestrial ground. It is said that the eventual overthrow of the Flux Lord would come at the hands of one of his own offspring, who would orchestrate a rebellion within the Flux itself to destroy their lord and prevent the curse from spreading further. This unnamed child of the Flux is now commonly referred to as "The Vessel", as a growing splinter of Children who have aligned themselves with Mother and her plans for revenge believe that the Child would serve as Mother's avatar, allowing her brief passage back to the surface where she would confront Nex once more.


End file.
